What startups fail to disclose is that the equity they offer is not the same class as the investors have, even though they are taking a huge risk of the startup failing.

Even if the equity is in the same category, it's unlikely to be extremely valuable.

A $2M exit sounds great until you factor in the extra taxes and 5 to 10 years to realize that. Many software developers could make a substantial amount of that, without the risk, simply by aggressively working career changes.

Honestly it’s a losing gamble too. You rarely win those options.

Often the dice are loaded, you can find many stories on here on about some financial trickery whereby the options become low value or worthless as the founders and VC's cash out. I personally evaluate them at $0 because of this. It's a shame too because that sounds like my ideal work setup.

Pretty sure this article was posted on HN, which is why I remembered it: https://marker.medium.com/my-company-sold-for-100-million-an...